The freshman direct student loan limit is $5,500. You say you are taking out $7,500 in loans freshman year. If the extra $2,000 is from a Perkins loan, that will only be available for your first year, because Perkins loan program is ending as far as I know.
So you need to plan for that in future years.
I think for your career goals, William and Mary would be an excellent choice.
You have no bad options. The amount of debt for Cornell is reasonable. However, I have a kid with a smaller loan payment than $350 and she’ll have it paid off in less than 10 years. Still, she hate, hate, hates making that payment every month. I don’t think the issue here is whether the amount of debt is too much (it isn’t; it’s very reasonable), but how you feel about paying it back. Every month for 10 years are you going to be thinking, “Ugh, if I didn’t have this stupid student loan payment I could have ____ (a better car, an annual vacation, no roommate).” And that is a hard thing to ask a new hs graduate to do–think that far into the future and know himself or herself well enough to guess feelings about debt.
Graduating early is nice, but not something I would plan on…anywhere, especially if the stars all have to align for you to do it.
^^ This is a very good point by @ordinarylives. I had a student loan when I graduated, and I never really minded making the monthly payment, but that was because my options were college with debt or no college at all. Had I had an option that would not have required loans, I might have viewed that monthly payment with regret. It’s hard to know at age 18 what your 25-30 year old self will think of that payment down the road.
For academia, W&M would be just as good as Cornell I believe both would be tough. For the political sphere, it’s hard to say, but Cornell certainly wouldn’t be detrimental. Don’t know where @calmom got that idea.
Cornell would give an edge in banking and consulting recruiting.
Whether the debt is worth it is a personal decision.
As long as the student takes his/her sub & unsub loans as a condition of getting the Perkins loan before Sept. 30, 2017 it looks as if s/he can continue to receive Perkins loans as long as they are eligible and he school has the funding.
whether or not to take on this debt is something that Op and parents need to talk about. Op has 2 great choices. I think both schools will provide Op the opportunity to do work for the federal/state government. The key will be getting internships and gaining experiences.
For an English major considering an academic career, I don’t see any advantage to Cornell. That’s not really what Cornell is best known for, although, of course, I’m sure it’s excellent in most areas. But then, so is W & M and I DO think of that school more for literary arts. I’d advise my own kid to take W&M over Cornell in this situation.
Re#25, Cornell has a very good English department. I don’t know what “known for” means, but the department currently has a #8 grad ranking in US News, FWIW. and IIRC has basically always had this kind of ranking. Or higher. Its graduate creative writing program is also highly regarded, and IIRC the same faculty teaches the undergrad courses.
My D2 took a number of courses in the English department, almost majored in it, though ultimately decided on a different major. She liked her English courses there. She told me the creative writing courses she took there were her favorites of her whole undergrad years.
I just looked up the prior posts of former CC poster @jingle, a professor at a strong university English department.
Here are links to some of her comments that may be of at least tangential relevance/ interest:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/12007357#Comment_12007357
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/11212620#Comment_11212620
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/10276192#Comment_10276192
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/14141219/#Comment_14141219
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/12384704#Comment_12384704
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/10160536#Comment_10160536
BTW, my daughter decided to transfer to Cornell in the first place in part based on recommendation of a friend of mine who had been an English major there. He had a good experience as well, and echoed some of @jingle’s comments. After all these years later he was still in touch with some faculty members there.
found the link about creative writing, FWIW:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2007/08/creative-writing-program-named-among-top-10-nation
Wow, monydad, I stand corrected; very impressive. Thanks for posting this info.
Wow, thanks so much for your comments. I still have a couple weeks to think this over, but as of now there’s at least a chance these links will change the course of my life…
30k is a manageable amount of debt.
Hi. I’m not sure whether anyone will see this, but I wanted to post a final update. I’ve decided to go to William and Mary. I’m glad that I was able to make this choice after having a reasonably good idea of how $30,000 in debt would have affected my life; a few weeks ago I had never even considered the possibility of taking out loans and I might have ended up deciding without a good understanding of my options. I’m thankful for the people who gave me advice on this forum.
William and Mary is a terrific college. Congratulations!!
Welcome to the Tribe!! There are wonderful opportunities there and the benefits of graduating debt-free will leave you free to take advantage of whatever path you take.
Other thing to have considered (For future readers): Cornell is NOTORIOUSLY stingy in taking your A P credits compared to many other colleges so you may not have placed out of much–but good luck at W/M!
Going to W&M with no debt is a smart choice. I’ve been a hiring manager for 30 years. Unless you are going into investment banking it does not make one iota of difference from where you receive your undergrad degree. It is simply a checkbox on an application. Podunk U and Ivy grads doing the same job get the same money.
Post-grad is a different story. Where matters. But always take the least expensive option for undergrad. W&M is an excellent school!
Oh yeah, this wasn’t a deciding factor for me, but AP credit was definitely a pot-sweetener for W&M. If I do as well on this year’s APs as I expect to I’ll be entering with about 30 credits (two semesters, if that varies by school), compared to about half that from Cornell. I was definitely skeptical of some of the classes CU wanted me to take again. WM will let me move on faster and take more electives, and will make it easier for me to pick up a second major or study abroad.
So if anyone does see this in the future, definitely think about how different schools’ AP/IB offerings will affect your ability to explore new things and to get as much out of college as possible.
Congratulations. William & Mary is a wonderful school.